competitive
trials of skill in operating machines. These machines are very
powerful, very complex, very important; and that supreme skill
shall be used in operating them is very important too. For this
reason, every man in the engineering department of every ship,
from the chief engineer himself to the youngest coal-passer, is
made to pass an examination of some kind, in order that no man
may be put into any position for which he is unfit, and no man
advanced to any position until he has shown himself qualified for
it, both by performance in the grade from which he seeks to rise,
and by passing a professional examination as to the duties in the
grade to which he desires to rise.

The same principles apply to all machines; and the common sense
of mankind appreciates them, even if the machines are of the human
type. A captain of a company of soldiers, in all armies and in all
times, has been trained to handle a specific human machine; so has
the captain of a football team, so has the rector of a church. The
training that each person receives gives him such a subconscious sense
of the weights and uses of the various parts of the machine, that he
handles them almost automatically--and not only automatically but
instantly. The captain on the bridge, when an emergency confronts
him, gives the appropriate order instantly.

Now the word "machine" conveys to the minds of most of us the image
of an engine made of metal, the parts of which are moved by some
force, such as the expansive force of steam. But machines were in
use long before the steam-engine came, and one of the earliest
known to man was man himself--the most perfect machine known to
him now, and one of the most complicated and misused; for who of
us does not know of some human machine of the most excellent type,
that has been ruined by the ignorance or negligence of the man
to whose care it was committed?

A machine is in its essence an aggregation of many parts, so related
to each other and to some external influence, that the parts can
be made to operate together, to attain some desired end or object.
From this point of view, which the author believes to be correct,
a baseball team is a machine, so is a political party, so is any
organization.

Before the days of civilization, machines were few in type; but
as civilization progressed, the necessity for organizations of
many kinds grew up, and organizations of many kinds appeared. Then
the necessity for know